“Now, our God, follow this bereavement with thy purifying, sanctifying grace.  Enable us all to search and try our ways.  Lead our souls into a knowledge of the secret corruptions of our hearts, that we may confess and mourn over them, wash in the blood of Christ, be pardoned, restored, and get a great victory.  Enable us through life to abide in Christ; to keep close to thee, transacting all our affairs with thee, before they come into the view of the world.  Let thy wisdom and thy Spirit, in connection with thy providences, be our counsellors.  O keep us in a dependent frame of mind, humble and watchful.  Strip us of all self-confidence.  May we at the same time be strong in the Lord and in the power of thy might; rejoicing in thee, the God of our salvation, the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever.  Glory, glory, glory, to Father, Son, and blessed Spirit.  Amen, and Amen.”

“DECEMBER, 1801.

“It is my earnest desire to ’grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’ It is my desire to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind; and to love my neighbor as myself, so as to do to Mm whatever I could expect from Christian principles in him, on an exchange of circumstances.

“It is my desire to give all diligence to add to my faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness charity, that these things being in me and abounding, I may be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

“I desire to grow in grace day by day, to profit by every ordinance of God’s appointing, and by every providence; and I pray, Lord, I pray that thou wouldst grant me my desire, so as that I may become more spiritual, more discerning in the Scriptures, more fruitful in good works:  that thou mayest increase also my humility.  Open to my view more of the extent and spirituality of thy divine law; the majesty, purity, holiness, of thy nature; the exceeding sinfulness of sin; the hidden corruptions of my own heart, and my inability to search them out, and to crucify them:  give me also more just views of my past life, that I may ever be convinced that I am, what I really am, the very chief of sinners, and the least of all saints; and that it is entirely of grace that I am what I am.  O make out this promise to me; I will record it in thine own words:  ’I will establish my covenant with thee:  and thou shalt know that I am the Lord,’ Ezekiel 16:62.  I confess myself the character described in the two foregoing chapters; and though thou hast chastened me ten thousand times less than my iniquities deserve, even by the constitution of the new covenant, thou hast chastened me.  Now, O Lord, most merciful and gracious, who ‘pardonest iniquity, transgression, and sin,’ for thy name’s sake, do to and for me as thou hast said:  ’I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.  That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.’  Amen.”